SVOD a hit in Australia: subscriptions climb 30%

Subscription video on demand (SVOD) services delivered over the internet continue to feed Australians’ appetite for entertainment with subscriptions reaching 3.7 million at the end of June 2017, a year-on-year increase of 30%, according to a new study from technology analyst firm Telsyte.

Highlights from the report released this week reveal:

Almost half (49%) of Australian households currently subscribe to either Pay TV or SVOD services, with 11% subscribing to both, an increase from 38% in 2015.

Telsyte estimates that Netflix exceeded 2 million subscriptions at the end of June 2017, with Stan in second place with 867,000, and others making up 769,000.

Telsyte research indicates around a third of pay TV subscribers also have at least one SVOD subscription, with 46% of SVOD subscribers claiming to “rarely” watch FTA TV. Telsyte research shows that the average SVOD subscriber watches nearly 26 hours of video content a week across FTA TV, pay TV, SVOD, online TV on demand (catch-up TV & live streaming TV), and other video content sources (incl. non-streaming videos), compared to around 21 hours for the average Australian.

“SVOD adoption in Australia has started to reach a scale which has strategic significance to media and telecoms companies alike,” Telsyte managing director Foad Fadaghi said.